Gavin Bazunu

[Patches O Houlihan]

2 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Ipswich have got to drop more than the odd point over the next few games, surely?

• Watford19:45Ipswich Town

Saturday 16th December

CHAMPIONSHIP

• Ipswich Town12:30Norwich City

Saturday 23rd December

CHAMPIONSHIP

• Leeds United12:30Ipswich Town

Tuesday 26th December

CHAMPIONSHIP

• Ipswich Town19:45Leicester City

Our December fixtures certainly look a lot more winnable 

 

 

[Galway saint]

10 minutes ago, Patches O Houlihan said:

I think its reasonable to expect us to loose at least another 4 or 5 games. So on that basis I agree. 

So I guess we ought to get the players fired up with a tournament mentality to win the playoffs, practise penalties, and turn Baz into a penalty stopping machine!

hopefully teams will hit them to his right hand side 

[pimpin4rizeal]

5 hours ago, Harry_SFC said:

A few people here are quick to slag off Bazunu when he makes an error (fair enough) but then when he makes a great save it's just "routine".

It wasn't world class but if you don't think that was a brilliant save then you're agenda is getting the better of you.

It’s not just about making the odd good save though .. or being good with his feet .. he’s just not very trustworthy .. he does let in a lot of weak looking goals. Surprised the amount of praise he gets on here ..he’s not what I’d call a safe pair of hands 

[The Kraken]

2 minutes ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

It’s not just about making the odd good save though .. or being good with his feet .. he’s just not very trustworthy .. he does let in a lot of weak looking goals. Surprised the amount of praise he gets on here ..he’s not what I’d call a safe pair of hands 

🤣

Genuinely surprised at that comment tbf. He’s about the most pilloried player we’ve got (and not without substance).

[pimpin4rizeal]

29 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

🤣

Genuinely surprised at that comment tbf. He’s about the most pilloried player we’ve got (and not without substance).

It’s a bit of both tbh .. which is why this thread is always so busy .. he gets a crap ton of excuses and people defending him too .. just in recent weeks he got done by that by Rotherham goal, the cross that ended up a goal and now this .. 

would things like these keep happening with Niemi in goal  ?

[Harry_SFC]

9 minutes ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

It’s a bit of both tbh .. which is why this thread is always so busy .. he gets a crap ton of excuses and people defending him too .. just in recent weeks he got done by that by Rotherham goal, the cross that ended up a goal and now this .. 

would things like these keep happening with Niemi in goal  ?

No but why are you comparing him with Niemi, one of our best keepers? I don't think anyone should expect him to be that good, especially at Bazunu's age.

Edited 10 December, 2023 by Harry_SFC

[Whitey Grandad]

I’ve just watched the extended highlights and whilst Bazunu should have done better I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the role of Bednarek in their goal. He’s close enough to Healey to block the shot but instead turns away from him and the shot goes through his legs. The consequence is that Bazunu has to lean to the right in order to see the ball and then has to suddenly adjust to his left and ends up mishandling the shot. It goes some way to explaining where he goes wrong but does not excuse him.
 

This is not the first time that Bednarek has got in the way and done nothing to block the shot. His only contribution is to block the view of his own goalkeeper. If he kep his eyes on the ball he would block a lot more goal efforts.

[spyinthesky]

Trouble is 'keepers nowadays need to be the first line of attack and last line of defence ie a lot of Managers place the emphasis on distribution rather than the ability to stop shots.
I wonder how Gordon Banks or Peter Shilton would have got on in today's game\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/

[Whitey Grandad]

10 minutes ago, spyinthesky said:

Trouble is 'keepers nowadays need to be the first line of attack and last line of defence ie a lot of Managers place the emphasis on distribution rather than the ability to stop shots.
I wonder how Gordon Banks or Peter Shilton would have got on in today's game\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/

Too true. 
 

And whatever happened to the old-fashioned goal kicks where the keeper just hoofed the ball upfield to the sound of an appropriate chant from the crowd?

[CanadaSaint]

32 minutes ago, spyinthesky said:

Trouble is 'keepers nowadays need to be the first line of attack and last line of defence ie a lot of Managers place the emphasis on distribution rather than the ability to stop shots.
I wonder how Gordon Banks or Peter Shilton would have got on in today's game\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/

The goal reflects exactly that. Bazunu was playing well off his line in order to be that "last line of defence". The major danger is something going over his head. The other big danger is that a shot will come when he's back-pedalling - a situation in which it's really difficult to adjust sideways. A keeper's widest reach comes when he's advancing, the narrowest when he's retreating.

He'll let both kinds in this season - likely more to come. It's the price of bringing those "last line" things, and being the initial launch point for attacks, both of which are central to how we play, and both of which he does extremely well. On balance, for me, he's much more an asset than a liability.

[david in sweden]

9 hours ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

It’s a bit of both tbh .. which is why this thread is always so busy .. he gets a crap ton of excuses and people defending him too .. just in recent weeks he got done by that by Rotherham goal, the cross that ended up a goal and now this .. 

would things like these keep happening with Niemi in goal  ?

not a good comparison to make ... Niemi was already 30 years old and an experienced international keeper when he came to Saints.

I liked his game a lot, and he is one of my favourite keepers during the 60-odd years I've been a Saints fan.

Much has already been written on this thread already, but keepers always get the criticism for lost points whilst strikers miss chances -

and even sitters sometimes, and yet people still come away saying they had " bad luck ".

Goals win games, but Saints are still a one-man band with our dependence on Adam Armstrong.  His efforts alone has helped us win 20 points this season.

Blaming the keeper is always the easy option.      Up until the 95th minute.. I would have made Bazunu man of the match for his efforts. 

[Challenger]

18 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Is your expectation that we should be conceding zero goals across 12 games?

My expectation is that we should try and score more at the other end to try and negate the few we let in.

[Challenger]

21 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

0.75 goals conceded per game would literally have been the best defence in the league last season. It’s utterly laughable that people talk about this as ‘costing us points’.

Yeah, I was really pissing myself laughing when Watford got their goal because as you say it didn't effect our points tally from the game or drop us further from the top three at all , did it.

Yes, the goals against tally is good over the unbeaten run, as is the possession stats but, unfortunately the goals for and the " hang on to the one goal lead" philosophy IS costing points.

[malcolm waldron]

9 hours ago, david in sweden said:

not a good comparison to make ... Niemi was already 30 years old and an experienced international keeper when he came to Saints.

I liked his game a lot, and he is one of my favourite keepers during the 60-odd years I've been a Saints fan.

Much has already been written on this thread already, but keepers always get the criticism for lost points whilst strikers miss chances -

and even sitters sometimes, and yet people still come away saying they had " bad luck ".

Goals win games, but Saints are still a one-man band with our dependence on Adam Armstrong.  His efforts alone has helped us win 20 points this season.

Blaming the keeper is always the easy option.      Up until the 95th minute.. I would have made Bazunu man of the match for his efforts. 

I always thought Niemi was "funnished......"

[pimpin4rizeal]

10 hours ago, david in sweden said:

not a good comparison to make ... Niemi was already 30 years old and an experienced international keeper when he came to Saints.

I liked his game a lot, and he is one of my favourite keepers during the 60-odd years I've been a Saints fan.

Much has already been written on this thread already, but keepers always get the criticism for lost points whilst strikers miss chances -

and even sitters sometimes, and yet people still come away saying they had " bad luck ".

Goals win games, but Saints are still a one-man band with our dependence on Adam Armstrong.  His efforts alone has helped us win 20 points this season.

Blaming the keeper is always the easy option.      Up until the 95th minute.. I would have made Bazunu man of the match for his efforts. 

I’m not really comparing him to Niemi rather just pointing out that if we had a keeper like that we wouldn’t be letting in this amount of soft goals .. 

as far as experience thing if I had my way we wouldn’t keep trying to be clever with kids in goal anyway .. we end up getting punished whilst they are on their learning curve and if he reaches a great standard .he will probably bugger off to a big club anyway .. and I doubt we would even make a big profit as keepers are not usually hugely expensive. 

Just doesn’t seem worth it to me 

[david in sweden]

3 minutes ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

I’m not really comparing him to Niemi rather just pointing out that if we had a keeper like that we wouldn’t be letting in this amount of soft goals .. 

as far as experience thing if I had my way we wouldn’t keep trying to be clever with kids in goal anyway .. we end up getting punished whilst they are on their learning curve and if he reaches a great standard .he will probably bugger off to a big club anyway .. and I doubt we would even make a big profit as keepers are not usually hugely expensive. 

Just doesn’t seem worth it to me 

 

Goalies have to learn their game , and you can't expect a 24/25 year old to suddenly appear and DAJFU.. unless " imported "  from another country.

In the last 10-12 years we've had a series of  " older / experienced " keepers.... ( Boruc, Forster, McCarthy) and although they had occasional runs of good games ,

the same criticisms pop up, (with some saying that they were too old ! ). Whilst we are on a good unbeaten run at present , we still need to score more, as the clubs

around us are doing .   My point has always been that goalies will almost always concede goals, but there's not enough being scored by our current strike force.

[St. Ciervo]

On 09/12/2023 at 11:32, Wade Garrett said:

Terrible mistake for the goal.

The saves made looked pretty routine to me.

Hugely disappointing.

When a save looks routine, it means the goalie did EVERYTHING right. He made that one on one save beautifully by cutting down the angle and closing holes. Looked routine and robotic, but it was hardly either. 

[S-Clarke]

Any mentions of his save at 1-1 to get us that point? It was excellent. I think he's having a good run with us at the moment, certainly improving in my eyes and one of the key reasons (arguably the only reason) we're unbeaten in 13.

[maysie]

2 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Any mentions of his save at 1-1 to get us that point? It was excellent. I think he's having a good run with us at the moment, certainly improving in my eyes and one of the key reasons (arguably the only reason) we're unbeaten in 13.

Yep was a fantastic save, really strong arm. His issue seems to be from long range low to the left where he just doesn’t seem to set himself right. You’d hope that is coachable  though.

[Harry_SFC]

3 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Any mentions of his save at 1-1 to get us that point? It was excellent. I think he's having a good run with us at the moment, certainly improving in my eyes and one of the key reasons (arguably the only reason) we're unbeaten in 13.

He is a more than decent keeper when the ball isn't low down to his left...

[Whitey Grandad]

9 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

He is a more than decent keeper when the ball isn't low down to his left...

When his view is blocked he leans to the right which puts his weight on the wrong leg. He can be coached out of it but that doesn’t help us right now.

[Saint Troy]

8 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

When his view is blocked he leans to the right which puts his weight on the wrong leg. He can be coached out of it but that doesn’t help us right now.

Genuine question - what is he supposed to do when unsighted? I assume he leans one way to try and get a view of the ball (which seems sensible). If he leans left it’s the same problem to the right, if he stays unsighted he’s unsighted so that’s not great either (but is that technically what he’s supposed to do)?

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, Saint Troy said:

Genuine question - what is he supposed to do when unsighted? I assume he leans one way to try and get a view of the ball (which seems sensible). If he leans left it’s the same problem to the right, if he stays unsighted he’s unsighted so that’s not great either (but is that technically what he’s supposed to do)?

It’s something that needs to be sorted out with the defenders in front of him. If they can block his view they can also block the shot. 

Maybe instead of leaning he should shuffle across slightly?

[Saint Troy]

3 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

It’s something that needs to be sorted out with the defenders in front of him. If they can block his view they can also block the shot. 

Maybe instead of leaning he should shuffle across slightly?

Interesting, the shuffle may be better,  will watch out for this a bit more and see how others deal with it

[Weston Super Saint]

6 hours ago, Saint Troy said:

Genuine question - what is he supposed to do when unsighted? I assume he leans one way to try and get a view of the ball (which seems sensible). If he leans left it’s the same problem to the right, if he stays unsighted he’s unsighted so that’s not great either (but is that technically what he’s supposed to do)?

Shout at Bednarek who's in his fucking way, again!

[St. Ciervo]

Are Baz haters still talking about THAT goal? He should have absolutely stopped that final shot. However, we shouldn't have even been in a position to win the game; he kept us in it. You may say he lost us 2 points, but I'd say he earned us 1 pt. I'd repeat that again for the mid-week game.

There is a lot of other players for haters to move onto. If Baz had taken that throw-in like Alcaraz, I'd be reading entire spreadsheets about how he is subpar in whatever  category. 

[Saint_clark]

6 hours ago, St. Ciervo said:

Are Baz haters still talking about THAT goal? He should have absolutely stopped that final shot. However, we shouldn't have even been in a position to win the game; he kept us in it. You may say he lost us 2 points, but I'd say he earned us 1 pt. I'd repeat that again for the mid-week game.

There is a lot of other players for haters to move onto. If Baz had taken that throw-in like Alcaraz, I'd be reading entire spreadsheets about how he is subpar in whatever  category. 

And if any outfield player had consistently made mistakes to the extent Bazunu has in his time here, we wouldn't even be discussing this because they'd no longer be in the team.

[The Cat]

13 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

And if any outfield player had consistently made mistakes to the extent Bazunu has in his time here, we wouldn't even be discussing this because they'd no longer be in the team.

Outfield players make loads of mistakes every game. Poor passes, shots ballooned over the bar, bad runs, wrong positioning. 

Goalkeepers make very few in comparison but they always magnified and analysed far more.

Goalkeeper lets a soft one in, meltdown. A striker misses a good chance, oh, he should have done better. If that game turns out to a draw then both of them have equally contributed to us not winning.

[Lighthouse]

8 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

And if any outfield player had consistently made mistakes to the extent Bazunu has in his time here, we wouldn't even be discussing this because they'd no longer be in the team.

AA made more mistakes against Cardiff, a game in which he scored twice and was MotM, than Bazunu has all season. You're going to need a new, irrational argument.

[Weston Super Saint]

37 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

AA made more mistakes against Cardiff, a game in which he scored twice and was MotM, than Bazunu has all season. You're going to need a new, irrational argument.

I'm sure there's an X? stat for it, but if you have 30 interactions during a game and screw up 5 of them, you will be more effective than someone who has 10 interactions and screws up 3 of them.

In most teams (that don't insist on passing the ball backwards constantly) the keeper has less interactions than outfield players, who are generally under more pressure on the ball.

[Bakovnetski]

9 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

And if any outfield player had consistently made mistakes to the extent Bazunu has in his time here, we wouldn't even be discussing this because they'd no longer be in the team.

Manning?

[Tommy Mulgrew]

But, in our team, Bazunu has almost as many touches as Bednarek, who is consistently among the most frequent touchers of the ball we have.  No jokes please.

[FarehamSaintJames]

What’s Fraser Forster up to nowadays? 😅

[Lighthouse]

57 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

What’s Fraser Forster up to nowadays? 😅

I believe he’s still diving down towards Jesse Lingard’s shot in the League Cup final.

[Saint_clark]

1 hour ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

What’s Fraser Forster up to nowadays? 😅

Back up keeper for the team 5th in the premier league, 18 places above us. 

[Harry_SFC]

I just read on twitter that Bazunu had a 100% pass accuracy today. Can anyone verify this? If so that can't happen very often from a goalkeeper.. 

[S-Clarke]

45 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

I just read on twitter that Bazunu had a 100% pass accuracy today. Can anyone verify this? If so that can't happen very often from a goalkeeper.. 

I'd expect that to be true, he doesn't seem to give it away when he has it. His on the ball work is as good as I've seen from a goalkeeper for us, very Ederson-esque. 

Still genuine aspects he has to improve in, but I'm really pleased to see him on the run he's on at the moment. It's going to do him the world of good after what was a pretty chastening experience last year. He's got all the attributes scouts would look for in a young keeper though.

[FarehamSaintJames]

Four shots at his goal yesterday, all on target, all good saves, none of them were pea-rollers by any means. 👏🏻

[Sheaf Saint]

7 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Four shots at his goal yesterday, all on target, all good saves, none of them were pea-rollers by any means. 👏🏻

You could argue he was a bit lucky that his failure to hold the shot from the free kick didn't present a clear chance to the onrushing attacker, but he recovered well and got away with it. Overall a good game though.

[sfc4prem]

6 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

You could argue he was a bit lucky that his failure to hold the shot from the free kick didn't present a clear chance to the onrushing attacker, but he recovered well and got away with it. Overall a good game though.

I mean, that was a free kick with a fair bit of venom. Fair play to him for anticipating the power behind it and being quick to pounce after saving the initial shot.

[Suhari]

Another clean sheet today.

He's coming good.

[Lighthouse]

10 conceded in the last 16 games (only Leicester are slightly better with 9 in the same period) and only 2 in the last 7. Not bad for the worst keeper in the league.

[Saint_clark]

Did well to keep out Swanseas one shot on target. 

 

On a serious note the small bits I saw he looked very good, much more commanding in the box than he has been previously. He's slowly turning into the kind of experienced, composed keeper we should have signed start of last season. 

[Barsiem]

It's the whole defence tbf.  In much the same way when we were conceding a bucket load that wasn't all his fault, now we are defensively solid it's not all down to him, but long may this state continue!

[Andrew Watson]

We will do well to keep hold of him,if we do not go up this season or next. Hopefully we do go up and that situation does not come into play.

[Turkish]

4 hours ago, Suhari said:

Another clean sheet today.

He's coming good.

He didn’t have much to do though. He is improving but he’s also playing behind a decent, organised defence. Harwood-Bellis is a superb player. He’s going to have a big future

[Galway saint]

9 hours ago, Andrew Watson said:

We will do well to keep hold of him,if we do not go up this season or next. Hopefully we do go up and that situation does not come into play.

it would be churlish to say he’s not improving( but that’s from a pretty low base last season)  but overall the defence is much better. it’s incomparable to those games at sunderland and middlesbrough and so he’s doesn’t have a great deal to do comparatively.

he still has that technical deficiency down to his left hand side and before we anyone gets concerned about his leaving he needs to sort that out. if we don’t go up i’d be far more concerned about replacing downes and THB than the keeper. you look at the guy at rotherham and see what you can pick up for say 5 or 6 million. 

personally if we ever get an offer for more than we paid we will have done well but he certainly seems a more confident presence but so he should as we’ve not lost for 16 games.

 

[Lighthouse]

For all the arguments that it's mainly the defence that's improving, not Baz making saves; hang on, a few months ago it was his fault for not communicating with the defence and shouting loudly enough at the 'son-in-laws' etc. The best saves are the ones you don't have to make and if his calmness, control, communication and distribution are a huge part of that. If Baz never has to face another shot on target for the rest of the season then it'll be largely because of his own excellent goalkeeping.

[IFHP]

It’s no coincidence that Bazunu has got better in line with a settled CB pairing in front of him .

Both Bennarek and Harwood-Bellis have been excellent and probably one of the best CB paring in the league . 
 

Bazunu though is excellent on the ball and he passes out with such confidence. 

[The Cat]

Last season would have been incredibly difficult for such a young keeper, adjusting to a new team in the hardest league in the world all the while behind a clusterfuck of a defence. 

If he'd had the wrong temperament it could have broken him, but he's kept his head together and focused on his game. Ever since Russell Martin's passionate defence of him at the fans forum he's become more confident and grown as a player.

It was quite obvious that we bought an extremely good young keeper with huge potential. People talk about technical deficiencies like no other goalkeeper has them but pretty much all of them have one somewhere.

Begovic also has a problem with diving left but that hasn't stopped him having a long top flight career. De Gea couldn't deal with crosses when Man Utd bought him but he went on to win pretty much every trophy there is.

Bazunu is also integral to the way we build from the back, I'm not sure there's another keeper in the league who could do that so well, and not many in the league above either.

Edited 27 December, 2023 by The Cat